Kolkata: Three subsidiaries of Vindhya Telelinks Ltd, a cable company of the MP Birla Group, have started separate criminal proceedings against five persons, including three former directors of these companies, for falsification of documents over a sustained period of time and misrepresentation of themselves as directors even after they ceased to hold office.
Prima facie it could be established before a learned judicial magistrate that their malfeasance had caused significant material damage, and that in their wrongful acts these directors were aided and abetted by officials who held key positions in these companies.
Accordingly, the learned judicial magistrate had on October 1 and 4 passed separate orders instructing the police to conduct a search and seizure operation at Birla Building, 9/1 R.N. Mukherjee Road—the erstwhile registered office of the complainant companies. Substantial documents were recovered from Birla Building on 5-6 October in a search and seizure operation that stretched well passed midnight.
“No matter what, the seized documents and those withheld by the accused persons will eventually shine light on the criminal acts of the accused persons,” said Debanjan Mandal, Partner, Fox & Mandal. “These acts were aimed at manipulating the management of the operating companies of the MP Birla Group. They failed miserably as the attempted fraud was detected in time,” he added.
Most recently, it came to light that votes were cast at the AGM of Birla Corporation Ltd by people not authorised to vote for the three complainant companies. Based on the advice of a retired judge of the Calcutta High Court, the Scrutineer for the election had declared these votes as illegitimate because voting by these unauthorised persons was not backed by proper board resolution. The person duly authorised by the boards of these three complainant companies was eventually allowed to exercise the voting right for these companies and all resolutions supported by the management of Birla Corporation was carried by overwhelming majority.
